Downing Street to deny pressuring Hutton to "sex up" report

29 Jan 2004 by Malcolm Drury

Downing Street is to issue a strongly-worded statement denying that it put pressure on Lord Hutton to "sex up" his report into the circumstances leading to the death of scientist Dr. David Kelly, DeadBrain has learned.

There have been murmurs in media circles, and in particular at the BBC, that the complete exoneration of Prime Minister Blair and other ministers, as well as government officials, could only have been the result of government intervention. The Report offered only a mild rebuke to the Ministry of Defence, but otherwise cleared the government of any wrongdoing, and put all blame squarely on the BBC. In particular it cleared the Prime Minister of misleading Parliament and the British public on the reasons for taking Britain into US President "Boy" George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.

"That is complete nonsense," Douglas Ramsbottom, a spokesman for Mr. Blair, told our reporter earlier today when confronted with the suggestion. "Lord Hutton is a man of the highest ethical standards and integrity, unlike those unprincipled, gutter-crawling, bottom-feeders at the BBC. There was absolutely no pressure from the Prime Minister or anyone in government. Even if there had been, Lord Hutton would have utterly resisted it."

In what appeared to be a new twist on the Nuremberg Defence, Mr. Ramsbottom added, "As for taking the country to war with Iraq, the PM was only following orders from President Bush."

He said that the Prime Minister's office was drafting a statement for release later today denying, in the strongest possible terms, any suggestion of pressure on Lord Hutton from Number Ten, and threatening legal action against anyone making such an accusation.

In related news, DeadBrain has learned that Number Ten is to require all those who potentially had access to the advance copy of the Hutton Report before its public release to take a literacy test. Anyone failing will be subjected to intense questioning on the grounds that they are likely Sun readers and therefore prime suspects for the leaking of the Report to that alleged newspaper.